Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Beyond Borders

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who will remember Borders as the book giant that failed, and those who will remember the flagship store in Ann Arbor as the coolest indie bookstore ever.

Tom and Louis Borders opened their used bookshop on State Street in Ann Arbor in 1971. My parents moved us to Ann Arbor from a big Detroit suburb in 1974. I was not-quite-14 years old, full of teen angst exacerbated by the move, and completely miserable in my new home town.

I was lonely (14 is a sucky time for girls to have to move; don't do it to your child) and bitter. My old school was 6th-8th grade and I had made all my friends there. My new school was 7th-9th grade (due to an overcrowded high school) and I couldn't beg or bribe my way into the cliques. All my friends were going to high school and I was stuck in a fourth year of junior high, a fate worse than death. I may, with a little more therapy, find a way to forgive my parents.

To me, the only decent thing about Ann Arbor back then (I think of them as the Wonderless Years) was free bus transportation for students. I started exploring a bit and discovered three great things on State Street:

The State Theater — a grand old dowager that had seen better days, but let students in for a buck and showed late-night movies. I'll never forget getting the beejeezus scared out of me when I went to see Sissy Spacek in Carrie at midnight with my uncle, who was just a few years older than I.

Wazoo Records — may still be one of the coolest record stores in the world (Stylus Magazine thought so in 2007), though I haven't been there in years. Those were vinyl days, and Wazoo was where I bought my copy of Janis Joplin's Pearl and my very first Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash records. Everything about Wazoo was cool in the hippie counterculture kind of way that I had missed by being born 10 years too late. I started my record collection there, which recently brought $300 into the family coffers, despite being used and abused to the point of being barely audible.

The original Borders — hunched right next to the State Theater and across from Wazoo, and was cool in a whole different kind of way. It felt more Nor Cal than midwest, all laid back and intellectual, just this side of pretentious. Since before I could read, stories had transported me beyond the mundane limits of late century midwest suburbia. Borders was an oasis, a calm, reader-centric environment with benches everywhere and a few comfy chairs that invited to you sit and read. Don't yawn. Back then, that was truly innovative. Other bookstores were crammed with shelves and snarky staff who looked down their noses and dared you to crack one of their new spines without paying for it first. Our Borders hired smart college students and book lovers of all ages who knew a thing or two, and were happy to share their recommendations or help you find the perfect gift. And Borders even had refreshments. You could (and I did) practically live there.

Though I continued to prefer the grownup Borders to Barnes & Noble, and feel plenty guilty about my Amazon binges, the Borders I will mourn hasn't really existed since it moved down the block to what they came to call "Store No. 1" on Liberty. Maybe that's what ultimately led to Borders' downfall— rewriting history and kind of forgetting what the real Store Number 1 was all about.

Do you remember the real Borders? If not, what do you think this failure means, if anything, to book lovers everywhere? Click here to comment.

Love this post. Brings back a lot of memories. I moved to Ann Arbor in '71, went to three years of middle school, only to be held there against my will in 9th grade, also. I also remember the stores with the same facination that you wrote about. I remember going into original Borders in my early teens on and soaking up the atmosphere with the college students. Store on Liberty lost most of the unique feel of the original. Some of my other favorite stores that I would make my rounds on were Sam's, Mo's and Drake's. Quaint, yummy food and lots of candy for a child to choose from.Thanks for taking me back and remembering some of the better times of being a teenager.

I loved Sam's. Best jeans store ever. My girlfriends and I would flirt outrageously with the college-aged staff. It's where I bought all my painters pants. And Drake's had the best tuna sandwiches. Several of my housemates in college worked there. Thanks for commenting. Which high school did you go to?

1971 was my first year in Ann Arbor, also, as a freshman. Wazoo was an eclectic treasure trove then, and in has remained so in decades following, thanks to the advanced music tastes of U of M students and others who sold off their LPs, then CDs. Now I'm in LA,and I'm loving the world's biggest independent record store, Amoeba. Highly recommend it. And there are a couple of dozen little used-LP-CD shops more like Wazoo.

I wasn't aware of the origin of Borders, but I do feel a profound loss withe the closure of the chain. Specifically, the Borders in Wilmette held a special place in my heart. When my boys were 3 and 5 I began taking a weeknight karate class at a dojo across the street. After class, I'd head to Borders and read, write or meet up with a girlfriend for coffee. I have such fond memories of that time and place.

I'm afraid I've never been to Ann Arbor although I am old enough to remember cool plastic record stores. You are lucky to have gotten to experience the original Borders. I will definitely mourn the store, even the chain store. There is one in Virginia Beach right across the street from Trader Joe's and one of my Saturday rituals for a while was to take my weekly coupon, buy a book at Borders, have a salad for lunch, and then stock up on groceries at Trader Joe's. My ritual made grocery shopping a little more palatable. But I loved browsing the big book store, smelling the coffee, picking up this book and that, and finally making that big decision.

Carol, I agree that the tactile sensations of a book store are quickly fading away. You don't browse online the same way you browse in person. One thing I didn't mention in this post was that my writing critique group met at our local Borders. There was something wonderful about working on your own writing with other writers while surrounded by thousands of books.